


Live for small horizons

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-14
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's not giving up. It's just in case. Coda for 6.08.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live for small horizons

**Author's Note:**

> Title by Conrad Aiken. Thank you to nyoka for the beta read.

Maybe it tastes too much like giving up, like defeat. Maybe this isn't what Dean should be spending his time on; he should be solving the problem, working the case (the case that's his friggin' _brother_ ).

Dean buys the leather notebook in a used bookstore that also sells things like blank books and pens and keychains. (He sees a pen that he thinks Lisa might like, sleek and light, with a casing that's a blend of colors. He rolls it between his thumb and index finger, then puts it back).

The place was the one location in the entire continental US where Sam managed to track down a copy of a rare book they needed on heaven, hell, purgatory, angels and demons. There are books in piles halfway to the ceiling -- Dean touches a stack out of curiosity, watches it sway, then quickly moves off so if it falls over it can't be his fault. He buys the notebook while Sam's busy off in one of the aisles, not even sure why. For hunting notes, he tells himself, even though his regular notebook isn't full yet.

The leather's sweet-smelling, soft, and pale brown. There's a leather cord for tying the book closed. Dean keeps it at the bottom of his duffel bag.

They work a regular case -- a haunting. Dean makes a joke, forgetting, and is shocked fresh at the blandness of Sam's response. A little smile because that's what you do when someone makes a joke, the way you do with a complete stranger. Dean holds onto the shock of the new small things about Sam now, worries at them like a mental sore tooth. They interview a witness whose hands and voice shake as she recalls what happened in her house and Sam impatiently wanders over to look at the coffee shop's baked goods display case. By the tilt of his head, Dean can tell he's listening, noting the details, but his smile is acerbic as he turns to interrupt, telling her to get to the point.

Aching and tired after they dig up the grave, Dean crawls into his bed and closes his eyes but all he can see is his brother's face, the dispassionate set of his mouth and jaw, eyes too dull in the light of the flames.

Sam's still up. Since they talked about it, he's given up any pretense of sleeping, doesn't even bother getting into bed. He's sitting on the table by the window, typing, the glow of the laptop spilling over his face. For a second there, everything is as it should be, the familiar crease in Sam's forehead, shoulders hunched with concentration. But then he moves in his chair, clicks on another page, the light changes, and Dean sees the differences, remembers.

Dean gets up, turns on the light, and rummages in his duffel until he finds the notebook and a ballpoint pen. Sam glances at him with mild curiosity and then his gaze snaps right back to the computer screen.

Dean crawls back into bed, undoes the leather cord, and chews on the end of his pen. Then he starts writing, the notebook propped against his thigh, until finally his eyelids grow heavy enough that he knows he can sleep. He ties the book shut and puts it under his pillow, next to his knife. Dean switches out the light, almost able to ignore the pale glow across the room.

The next couple of days, Crowley remains quiet. Dean writes in the notebook over breakfast. When Sam asks what he's doing, Dean says research notes. He writes in the book while Sam drives.

Sometimes he dozes, and wonders that he can do that, with a Sam at the wheel of the Impala who's so there and yet not there, how Dean can feel as secure as he did in the Before. It's still the two of them and the growl of the Impala's engine, the long line of the highway; so long as they don't talk, Dean can forget for a little while and then be startled all over again when Sam does or says something, makes a gesture, that isn't quite _Sam_ enough.

This is not giving up, because he's not. There is no friggin' way in hell, purgatory, heaven, or anywhere the heck else that Dean's giving up. But this is just in case. Just in case.

He writes at the rest stop, sitting on the picnic table with the notebook on his knee while Sam uses the bathroom. The base of the pen's become distorted with his own teeth marks. Chewed down to a thin sliver of bent plastic.

When they're back on the road, Dean drives, and he can't write any more, but he thinks about what's next.

"What, you writing a novel?" Sam remarks the next day, when they stop for lunch in a town where they've tracked rumors of a wendigo attack. The note of teasing disdain is so familiar Dean can't breathe for a second and he wants to punch Sam right in the face, as if he has no right to sound like that. Like Sam.

Dean doesn't answer. He puts the notebook away.

He hopes his cell never rings, dreads turning around and finding Crowley sitting in a chair at the next table, smirking at them. He hopes his cell rings, hopes Crowley will pop up out of nowhere with another job for them. _Bring me an Alpha wendigo, lads, and I'll give you precious little Sammy's immortal soul._

The wendigo this time turns out to be an overly large sick grizzly. They hear the whole story while hanging out at the ranger station pretending to be reporters.

On the fourth hour of driving through the night down towards New Mexico, Sam looks away from the road to glance over at Dean where he's writing with a pen-light attached to a clump of pages near the back of the journal.

"All right, really, what are you doing?"

"Why do you even care?" Dean says, the words snapping out before he can temper them.

He looks over at Sam, watches for the flicker of hurt on his face, for his mouth to tighten, the annoyed face -- and none of that is there. Sam's hands are light and confident on the steering wheel, gaze ahead on the road again.

"I don't, but I'm bored. You've been writing in that thing like your life depends on it for days now. I just...wondered." Sam shrugs.

Sam doesn't ask again. He goes on driving.

This is not giving up, but sometimes, when he's drifting off to sleep, or when he's alone, he wonders what if they fail, and if they do, Dean wants it all down somewhere. Not only in Sam's head, because Sam might eventually decide he doesn't care for those memories after all, and allow those parts of him to be swallowed up by whatever Sam is now. Not only in Dean's head, because while Dean won't ever, ever forget, he's fallible and mortal and feeling all too fragile these days. Dean thinks Bobby knows a piece of the same Sam he does, and that Castiel sees in Sam something of what Dean sees in him, but there's no one else left. If Dean goes down, there's no one else who knows it all, from the first temper tantrum, all the way through the big grins, the stupid chick-flick damp-eyed looks, the annoyed faces, the anger and determination and shouting matches and rib-crunching hugs, to the way Sam's fist uncurled with the devil inside him.

Dean's filled half the notebook so far. On the first page he's written SAM.

He turns the page, keeps on writing like his life depends on it.


End file.
